The Return of Monday Nights with Kat

You know what's awesome? Sleeping for 10½ hours. I can feel my sanity returning!

In spite of the lack of Bachelor/Bachelorette on tv right now, Kat and I have restarted our Monday night cookery fun. We had double fun last Monday because it was Labour Day! That meant we could get to work around 3.

Have I mentioned how much I love just sitting in the kitchen chatting over tea?

I love it. Like, seriously.

We had three killer recipes that night, beginning with Roasted Garlic, Sun-dried Tomato Chickpea Dip

We easily could have eaten the whole bowl!

From there, we moved on to a Lucy Waverman-inspired dish: Sicilian Quinoa with Roasted Cauliflower. She does hers with pasta and anchovies.

Lucy's version, from her cookbook.

 We replaced the pasta with quinoa, the anchovies with kalamata olives and made the Parmesan optional.

Capers, garlic, red pepper flakes and olives

Seriously, this was AMAZING.

Served on my Nana's china!

Quinoa is such a powerhouse grain and it just worked so beautifully with the salty/briny flavours of the capers and olives and the spiciness of the pepper flakes.

Ingredients:

8 cups small cauliflower florets (1 medium head)
1/3 cup olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 cup quinoa
2 tbsp chopped garlic
1 tsp chili flakes
2 tbsp capers
¼ cup chopped kalamata olives
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 cup chopped parsley
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

Instructions:

Step 1: Preheat oven to 450°F.
Step 2: Break florets into bite-sized pieces and place in a bowl. Toss with 2 tbsp olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Spread on a baking sheet and roast, tossing occasionally, for 10-15 minutes, or until browned and tender.
Step 3: While cauliflower is roasting, bring 2 cups of salted water to a boil. Add quinoa and cook for 15-20 minutes, or until all water is absorbed.
Step 4: Heat remaining 1/4 cup oil in a large, deep skillet over medium-low heat while pasta is cooking. Add garlic, chili flakes, capers and olives and sauté for 3 minutes or until garlic is pale gold and softened.
Step 5: Add cauliflower and lemon juice and cook for 2 minutes, or until cauliflower is heated through.
Step 6: Toss quinoa with parsley, cheese (optional) and extra-virgin olive oil. Stir together with cauliflower until well coated with sauce.

For dessert, we whipped up a Pear-Cranberry Crumble (the recipe was originally for a Pear Cranberry pie with streusel topping, but we opted to dump the pie crust).

Fresh out of the oven

I think the next picture really speaks volumes about how good we thought the dish was.

All gone!